The Penny Ferry da-2

by Rick Boyer

  "I still don't buy it," said Brian. "The Critchfield family… it's as big as the Adamses, the Lowells, the Peabodys, His grandson's going to be governor. Hell, the old man wouldn't be involved in this."

  "There's a good reason for you to start buying it, Brian," said Joe. "Just before he died from Sam's bullet, Carmen DeLucca whispered the name of the man who paid him to put the hit on Johnny Robinson and Andy Santuccio. Tell him what Carmen said, Doc."

  "He said three words to me: Old Joe Critchfield. Then he died. Where does Critchfield live, anyway?"

  "I think he's got a big estate up in Danvers or Andover," said Mary. "Someplace like that."

  "It's Andover. When they had you locked in the john, DeLucca mentioned that they had nowhere to go, not even Andover. Well Brian?"

  Our police chief paced back and forth as if doing a slow waltz step, looking at the floor.

  "Hmmmph! I'll be damned. Well, assuming that only part of it's true, it's no wonder old Critchfield wanted the film. I wonder how he knew it even existed, unless Santuccio himself told him. But I wonder why Santuccio didn't make it public."

  "We'll never, ever know those answers," said Joe. "In fact, we still don't know the answer to the most important question of all: were Sacco and Vanzetti guilty? We know now that their trial was rigged, their lawyer was crooked, and so on. But we've always suspected that. But were they guilty?"

  Then we examined the last two prints. One was a typed page. It was not a letter; it was a typed explanation of the photograph, which was the fourth and final frame in the negative strip. And that was the heartbreaker.

  The photograph was an old one. It was a street scene in Boston. We could tell it was taken a long time ago by the old landmarks, now gone, and the absence of present-day buildings. Also, of course, we could tell by the clothes the people in the photograph were wearing. It didn't take us long to fix the location: Boston's North End, right along Atlantic Avenue at the Commercial Street intersection, looking northeast across the harbor to East Boston. The warehouses of Battery Wharf were unmistakable. The picture was filled with pedestrians, some faintly blurred because of their walking. A lot of the harbor was visible, including many boats and ships that spouted great black plumes of coal smoke as they headed out to sea or up toward the Mystic and Chelsea river channels. In fact, we soon decided the picture was of the harbor, not the street. Two old tin lizzies were parked along the Atlantic Avenue curb. In the foreground was a group of three men who stood chatting, oblivious of the camera. They were standing quite still, because there was no blur about them. They stood out clear and crisp.

  "That's him," said Mary, "on the far right. See? He's holding his derby hat in his right hand."

  She was right. There stood Nick Sacco, bare-headed and instantly recognizable, talking with two friends. In his left hand, the one nearest the camera, he held a piece of paper that was not newsprint. It appeared to be a picture. If it was, then I knew the tremendous significance of the old photograph, for Sacco's errand to the North End on April 15, 1920, had been to take a family photograph to the Italian consulate as the first step toward applying for passports to Italy. As it turned out, the photo he took to the consulate office was too big. He was turned down, and consequently had no written proof of his visit that day. I explained this to Joe and Brian. Both were slightly skeptical.

  "Too pat," said Joe. "That picture was taken from about twenty feet away. Why would anybody do that? And it just so happens that you've got Sacco in the picture, posing, with his passport photo very conveniently displayed. Nah. Sacco was a typical southern Italian type. Somebody got a ringer for him and posed that shot"

  "I agree," said Brian. "I'd like to think it was genuine, but I guess I want to know how come a passerby just happened along at just the right time and decided to snap that shot."

  "But wait," said Mary. "The shot isn't of the men; they just happened to be in the foreground. The picture is of the harbor. It's a good view too."

  We all stared at the scene in silence. Sam's finger went to the very center of the picture and rapped on it.

  "What's this?" he asked in a low voice. "What's goin' on here?"

  He had pointed to a steamboat, bow toward the camera, that was heading for a pier abutting Atlantic Avenue. Directly in the path of the steamer, and broadside to it, was a smaller steam launch. Upon looking more closely, we finally saw what it was that had drawn Sam's sharp eyes. The launch was canted over unnaturally. It was then clear to us that the bigger vessel was in fact colliding with the smaller one, about two hundred yards out in the harbor. And the collision scene, though by no means major, had been sufficient to draw the attention of a sightseer with a camera at hand, for the picture was framed around the two boats. They were the object of the picture, though casual inspection wouldn't reveal it.

  "That's one of the old penny ferries," said Joe. "I've seen a lot of pictures of them. They operated between Eastern Avenue in the North End and Lewis Street in East Boston. Fare was only a penny for foot passengers. It was before the Callahan Tunnel was built."

  "I remember the penny ferries," said Sam. "They were for the working people, the people who worked in the factories… it was the only way they could get to their jobs, so they kept the fare low."

  "Listen to this," I said, laying out the dripping print of explanatory text on the worktable. I then read aloud to them the following explanation: This photo was taken on the afternoon of April 15, 1920, by Mr. Louis Perez of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, during a visit to Boston. Mr. Perez's widow claims he was walking down Commercial Street when he came within view of the harbor. Having his camera ready for a panoramic picture, he planned to walk to the water's edge. However, at the intersection of Commercial and Atlantic, just opposite the old ferry landing, he saw that a collision between the ferryboat Ashbumam, inward bound from East Boston, and the cargo launch Grenadier appeared to be imminent. He took the picture, unaware that Nicola Sacco was standing on a nearby corner talking to his friends Dentamore and Guadagni, who promptly left the scene for a coffeehouse. Unfortunately, they were also unaware of the photographer. Damage to the vessel Grenadier was minor, and the incident, in spite of delaying the Ashburnam's four-minute channel run by eight minutes, was soon forgotten by both crews. However, the Coast Guard, which dispatched the rescue vessel Felicia to stand by, recorded the collision as having occurred at approximately 3:26 P.M., April 15, 1920.

  ***

  I replaced the print into the washing tray with the others. Nobody said anything. Sam went to the tray and picked up the wet print again. He held it up, and I looked over his shoulder at the face of the little dark man holding the picture. He was smiling. He was smiling because he was going on vacation to Italy to see members of his family whom he hadn't seen in years. But at the very instant the shutter was released, Alex Berardelli and Fred Parmenter lay dying on the roadside twelve miles away in South Braintree while the Morelli gang piled into the big touring car and sped away with the loot. And probably at the same instant Bart Vanzetti was sitting on an overturned dory on the beach at North Plymouth, thirty-five miles southeast, talking with Melvin Corl, the Yankee fisherman. They were probably talking politics, workers' rights, socialism, and all the other things that got Bart into trouble. And the events in Braintree would sweep along and engulf these two men who scarcely knew one another, would sweep them along as if they were in a riptide, so that within a month they would find themselves taken off a Brockton trolley car and arrested. And from the police station in Brockton they would follow an inexorable course that ended in the low, rambling, dusky hills of Charlestown, in the prison death house. Ironically, Sacco's ultimate destination lay just outside the photo, to the left.

  And it broke my heart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  "Thing is," said Joe as he lunged so hard into an egg roll that the cooking oil ran down his big chin, "thing is, we gotta make the thing stick." He commenced chewing, and his big soft eyes glazed over in ecstasy.

  We sat
around a big table in the Yangtze River Restaurant in Lexington. I had just inhaled a tureen of hot-sour soup, an egg roll, won-ton shrimp, and four pork dumplings with hot sesame oil. I had warned my mouth, esophagus, and all parts below that they were in for trouble, then thrown caution to the winds. Nothing beats a good thing like too much of it.

  "How?" asked Mary, whose mouth was swollen with Szechuan spicy beef and fried rice.

  Joe shook his head like a big bass fighting a hook. The headshake meant that he didn't know, couldn't talk, or both. We were thinking of an airtight way to nail Joseph Carlton Critchfield to the wall, even though he was ninety-two years old.

  "His grandson's the active one now," said Brian. "Maybe he's the one we're really after. One thing: we're not going to get anything firm on him because of that letter. It's damning; it'll wreck his rep

  … but it won't put him away."

  "We got to get him for killin' Johnny," said Sam.

  "I've got a nasty hunch," said Brian, "based on a lot of experience, that if we don't make it tight on the first pass, he'll slip through the net. He's got too many connections."

  "You're dead right," Joe said, rolling up a pancake filled with mu shu pork: He fed the tube into his mouth; it disappeared like a branch into a tree shredder. "I suggest entrapment."

  "Isn't that illegal?" I said.

  "Yep. I suggest it anyway. Just for openers. All Critchfield now knows are two things. One: nobody's found the incriminating photographs. He therefore has good reason to suspect they'll never be found… at least in his lifetime. Two: the thugs- all three of them- who could testify against him are dead, and nobody's come knocking on his door. He thinks he's in the clear. He's finally breathing easy. He's ready."

  "Count me in, Joe."

  "Forget it, Sam. We count you out. You're up to your ass in alligators already. You've done your part and we all thank you, but now you've got to be cool. Nope, there's only one logical person to spring the trap."

  "Who?" asked Mary.

  Joe pivoted around in his chair and leveled a big fat finger at my chest.

  "You."

  "Oh no."

  "Oh yes. You're the one, Doc."

  "Now wait a minute, Joey," said Mary. "Wait just a goddamn mm-"

  "I know, I know. But listen, the thugs are dead and the evidence is missing. But there's one guy around that if DeLucca did report in to old Critchfield- and we have every reason to think he did- could be a possible threat. And we all know who it is."

  Everybody stared at me. I felt like Caesar crossing the forum on the ides of March.

  "But I… but I…" I protested.

  "Not to worry, Doc. Take it easy, Mare, Joe continued, scooping a pint of sweet-sour pork over a heap of steaming rice. "There's nothing to worry about."

  He commenced shoveling in the food, and I felt a little better. I guess. But I had my doubts. After all, the last person he said that to was the late Johnny Rizzo. I felt the first of the gas pains shoot up my rib cage like a napalm rocket, and winced. Mary saw my expression and rubbed my shoulder. She attempted at weak smile.

  "Nothing to worry about, Charlie," she said. I stared glumly at the table and asked for the garlic shrimp and snow peas.

  "Here you go, pal," said Brian as he handed me the platter.

  "You're gonna need it."

  ***

  I peered down at the L-shaped brick-and-stone mansion at the foot of the hill. There was an iron fence all around it, and the tall, ornate gates were closed. In back of the house, enclosed by the L, was a pool, and off to one side a formal French garden. The roof was slate, and heavily gabled. It sure looked like a big house for one old man. But then he wasn't alone; he had his staff too…

  A portly black man in a dark uniform came out the back door and walked along a curved gravel path to the garage. He had white hair and carried a leather case. He disappeared into the garage, which was a four-car structure with a sizable apartment over it. It matched the house. Seconds later one of the doors glided up and a Fleetwood brougham limo the size of a boxcar rolled silently out, swung around the house, and eased to a stop in front of the terrace steps. It was the same one I'd seen earlier at the younger Critchfield's fund-raiser on Beacon Hill. The man got out of the car, putting on his cap, then opened the rear door and stood at attention with his white-gloved hand on the door handle. He could have been hewn from stone. It was right out of a movie.

  I felt a jabbing at my shoulder and handed the binoculars to my companion, who was also sprawled prone on the granite ledge above the estate on the outskirts of Andover. On the northern horizon we could see the forest of giant smokestacks in the city of Lawrence. They were still nowadays; no great white and black plumes of steam and smoke rose from them. They were like a forest of dead trees.

  "Here comes somebody," said Liatis Roantis, adjusting the focus of the marine glasses. "Looks like the big shot himself."

  Without the glasses the two figures descending the front steps of the mansion looked very small, but there was something familiar about the man who accompanied the old man into the limo. Was it his walk, his appearance? What? Before I had a chance to get a look through the glasses, the two men had entered the car and settled themselves in its vast interior. The black chauffeur shut the door and got back behind the wheel. The big car glided around the drive and through the gateswhich had swung open, apparently by remote control- and was gone.

  Roantis and I sat up. We were within view of the house, but its owner had left. I stood up and stretched. Roantis continued to scan the place.

  "We could go in if you want," he said casually.

  "Nah. I did that already, up in Lowell. I'm still in trouble for it, too."

  "Want me to go alone."

  "No. Joe doesn't even know I contacted you. After he struck out on his entrapment plan with the police brass, he thinks nobody's doing anything to get Old Man Critchfield."

  "So he let the brass talk him out of it? Listen, inna army, if I'd done that, me and my men would have died right away."

  "Yeah. But Joe's in kind of hot water lately with the brass. For instance, somehow they found out he had a conference with one of the North End Wise Guys. They told him to cool it or else. So I'm going after Critchfield myself."

  "Why are you?"

  "I just… I just. want to see the record set straight, I guess."

  The old ex-mercenary looked up at me and laughed softly.

  "I think you're a little bit like me, Doc. You get bored easy. And when you get bored, you get in trouble."

  "Speaking of trouble, you're usually in plenty. You still on probation for that bar fight in the Zone?"

  "Yeah. Almost over with. Ahhhh, fuck it," he said, rolling over and sweeping the estate with the 7x50 glasses. "I still say we should go in. Hey, how much are you paying me?"

  "Nothing."

  "Figured. You know a guy could get rich down in there… in less than an hour."

  "Don't get any ideas." I looked at my watch. It had stopped.

  My four-hundred-dollar Blackwatch Chronograph Adventurer had broken. It did everything but tell time. I sighed. "In about ten minutes he'll be at the Holiday Inn desk to pick up the envelope. He'll probably open it and look at the prints in the car on the way back here. I just want to watch his reaction if we can."

  "And then what? All you've done is made him mad. And making him go himsef that's… whaddaya call it? Insult and injury. I tink he's gonna be mad at you, Doc. And a guy like that is mean, let me tell you." He swept his arm over the estate below. "Hell, anybody got a spread like that, they're mean. Look at me. I'm the meanest guy who ever lived and I don't got diddly-shit."

  I grinned at him.

  "It's 'cause you're not greedy, Liatis… and because you spend all your dough on good booze and bad women."

  His eyes crinkled up in laughter. They had a slightly Mongol look to them, and his neck was laced with cords and veins. He looked a little like another Lithuanian, Charles Bronson. Only meaner. He flicke
d his droopy mustache and lit a cigarette.

  "How you know the desk clerk dint open the envelope and spill the beans?"

  "Not a chance and you know it. Not the way I sealed it, and not with Critchfield's name on it."

  So we waited for another twenty-five minutes until the big black car returned. It was going pretty fast, no doubt at the urging of its irritated occupant. It swung around in front of the steps and the old man and his assistant, who still looked vaguely familiar, stalked up the steps and into the house. The old man appeared to be telling the assistant off. They disappeared.

  Then nothing happened for almost another half-hour. Suddenly Roantis, who had the binoculars, punched my arm.

  "Look who's coming out," he said. I took the binoculars and saw the old man and his assistant come out on the terrace and sit down in wrought-iron chairs around a table. They seemed to be enjoying the sunshine. The old man, who moved with speed and grace for his age, held a cordless telephone which he dialed and talked into.

  "He's getting help," said Roantis. "He's looked at your pictures and now he's calling in the heat. You watch."

  "I think he's gonna need it. Question is, what do we do now?"

  "The note in the envelope said I'd contact him. I'm wondering how and when."

  "No time like the present."

  "Did you bring a gun?".

  "Nope. judge told me that I can't carry one while on pro. Said it'd be a year in the slammer if I'm caught with one. Too bad, too. This'd be perfect for my streetcleaner."

  "What streetcleaner? I don't see any streetcleaner."

  "Not that kind of streetcleaner."

  "Well what?"

  "It's a- shhhhhhhhh! Hear that?"

  "No. I don't hear anything but the wind."

  "Well I thought I heard something like bushes breaking. I think maybe it's too bad I dint bring a gun. Too late I guess."

  "Well let's go then," I said.

  "What's your hurry? Look, number-two man just went inside. Let's hang around and see what happens."